Hetman Pylyp Orlyk Print

I have been creating for over 13 years a picturesque series of portraits "Heroes of Cossack Ukraine". In cooperation with lead historians, reconstruction specialists, and those with an expert knowledge of the Cossack era, I try to recreate the image and appearance of historical figures of Ukraine's past and restore the true images of our ancectors. I think this will allow us to touch the real story. Pylyp Stepanovych Orlyk was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Host and of Right-Bank Ukraine (1710–14), and hetman-in-exile (1714–42). He was born in the village of Kosuta (today Vileika district, Minsk oblast, Belarus) into a noble family of Polish-Lithuanian-Czech (sometimes referred to as Czech-Belarusian) origin. He initially studied at the Jesuit college in Vilnius and later at the Kyivan Mohyla College, from which he graduated in 1694. In 1698–1700 he was employed as the secretary of the consistory of Varlaam Yasynsky, the metropolitan of Kyiv, Halych, and all of Little Russia. From 1700 to 1706 he held the post of senior military chancellor, and later became superintendent of the General Military Chancellery. In 1707 he was appointed general chancellor in the government of Hetman Ivan Mazepa.